A Clean Kill (Garrett Mann Book 1)

Overall, this is another solid entry into The Black Flag Story Universe.

I like the usual high attentiveness to detail in terms of the environment, character interactions, combat and world events taking place in the series. The main characters are fairly well developed, personality wise. To the point I'd love to see them have their own arc that focuses more on a story line that more relates to their chosen profession and not the usual stopping conspiracy or shadow cabal. (Thats not a complaint, I really enjoy this stuff.)

The book has a nice balancing of natural comedic relief, action, (lots of action, it's by Steven after all) believable narrative and overall flow. Something I don't see often in other books is a creative and real effort being put into a bilingual person or persons having a conversation. Instead of just having the narration imply or say the conversation is taking place in a foreign language and writing the conversation in English, Steven has the conversation actually take place in the foreign language and translates to the reader by having the character translate somehow or speaking in broken English/whatever language, and/or re writing parts of the conversation on English.

Combat and action is very believable, fairly easy to understand and follow. Even if your understanding of different forms of fighting is intermediate or non existent.

Story framework is typical of the Black Flag universe. It may sound repetitive but while reading, I did not find it to be that way. This universe has ALOT of life in it. Characters in the other books are mentioned and used but not overly rellied on. They dont over shadow or hijack the new characters story, just mearly help along the way.

Only real gripe I have. It's not much of one being it's a thriller book and there's good character development. I do wish that there were a couple more of the slow periods or moments where the chatacters weren't focused on the mission at hand (as in not doing something mission or job related) and those moments were a little more in depth, rather than a casual mention. I think it would really seal the deal of making the reader relate to the characters as people. That said, I highly recommend this book and any book in the Black Flag Arc.

So I have been a fan of Konkoly’s three previous series, which all exist in the same world, and have overlapping characters in the periphery. This book is outstanding, and proves that the author is still evolving.

The book is about an unorthodox FBI team of outcasts whose job is to hunt down serial killers, with a focus on the Southwestern US, led by Garrett Mann. Each member of the team has had someone close to them taken, and for them it’s personal.

When they finally get a break on a case they have been working on for over a year, they unknowingly stumble upon something much larger and more insidious than they anticipated. With their lives in imminent danger, the only way out, is through, even if it means breaking the law to do it.

I lived the Black Flagged, Dekker, and Devin series from Konkoly. His characters are always well drawn and relatable, and the books are well paced. If you haven’t read his other books, I highly recommend them all.

I have read several of the author's other series and have more sitting on my Kindle awaiting their turn. This book was just as enjoyable as his others which I have read. I was surprised to find that this series seems to start after a point of the characters having already been introduced. I figure at least one of the characters from this book is from one of the series that I just haven't read yet. I certainly recognized a few other names - some of whom have their own series. I just felt like there is a greater depth of information on a few of these characters available from a previous series - so that lets me know what I'll be reading soon. Lol I have no problem being dropped into the middle of action (for any book, not just by this author) - it's fun reading all the background info that gets sprinkled through the rest of the story. There were a few typos and skipped small words (and I think I noticed a wrong name at one point), but the mistakes were far fewer than many big-name authors I have read and the typos never threw me out of the story. In fact, it was difficult to put down the story. I will be looking forward to the next installment in this series, and should have finished all the remaining previous series so that I can catch all the fun mentions that will pop up!